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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23182258">If We Only Die Once</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/magicalgirldoe/pseuds/magicalgirldoe'>magicalgirldoe</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Alcatraz Series - Brandon Sanderson</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide Attempt, Trauma</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-03-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-03-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 16:08:56</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,184</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23182258</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/magicalgirldoe/pseuds/magicalgirldoe</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>He didn't want to die. He just wanted to stop existing.</p><p>Alcatraz jumped off the Worldspire.</p><p>Bastille jumped down after him.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Bastille Dartmoor/Alcatraz Smedry</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>10</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Stop Existing</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Finally a new Alcatraz fic! This was inspired by me having headcanons about what might happen in the sixth book, so I wanted to get it out before that book comes out and (most likely) renders it inaccurate.</p><p>Title is from the song "Something I Need" by OneRepublic.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>He hadn’t wanted to die.</p><p>Alcatraz had spent most of the past few months living in a haze. Coming back home from the Hushlands hadn’t seemed real, not after what had happened. He didn’t remember much from after Bastille had carried him away. It didn’t seem to matter anyway. All of the things that mattered had already happened.</p><p>The days immediately after, where he had stayed in bed or in the castle, had at least been steady. His head always swam with fresh memories and emotions, and he got barely any good sleep, but at least there wasn’t anything new to deal with. Bastille came to keep him company, but she treaded carefully and didn’t press him towards talking if he didn’t want to. He was grateful for that.</p><p>When he thought he had at least recovered some face, he decided to go outside. It was decision made out of obligation, and it only made things worse.</p><p>People stopped him in the street, congratulating him-for what, he couldn’t fathom. He was used to getting stares everywhere he went, but now the pride and awe with which people looked at him only filled him with shame and guilt.</p><p>After a few days, he was sat down for a press interview. Reporters swarmed around him with questions, rapid-fire, asking all about what had happened. Their words only mildly hit him as the thoughts and emotions of what had happened came back to him.</p><p>They were all too far away, like they lived on another plane. Another reality, one that wasn’t his.</p><p>Everyone wanted to know how the Hero of Mokia had done it. How did he make the Librarian forces turn back? How had he made such a grand speech and broadcasted it to the whole world? How had he managed to destroy the Highbrary?</p><p>They called him such kind things. Savior. Miracle child. Hero.</p><p>They were all lies. He didn’t deserve any of it.</p><p>Alcatraz shuffled along the platform.</p><p>Back on the altar, he hadn’t wanted to die. That still held true. The concept of death was still a primal fear, even after what he had seen. It was a gut reaction. He didn’t want to die.</p><p>He just wanted to stop existing. At least for a little bit. No more false hero to plague the world, no more pain and failure for him to inflict on it. The world wouldn’t have to deal with the destruction he always brought with him.</p><p>Alcatraz stood on the platform perched against the peak of the Worldspire. Below him, the Bottomless Chasm stretched on forever, the ocean waterfalls lining its edge eternally roaring. The wind pulled at his hair and clothes as he stepped closer to the platform’s edge.</p><p>He had been told tourists would come up here with skydiving gear. It was apparently fun to fall through the abyss. He didn’t have any of that, though. He didn’t need it.</p><p>He didn’t want to die. He just wanted to stop existing.</p><p>This seemed like the best way to do it.</p><p>Alcatraz leaned out over the void. He thought of the past few months, the praise people gave him, the glory they showered him in.</p><p>He thought of the altar, the image of his father’s bloodied body atop it, and how he had said “take him”.</p><p>Alcatraz jumped.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. On Instinct</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I was gonna post just one chapter to get it started but it hurt a lil too much to leave it at that so...here's another one</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>She had wanted to see him again. To be reunited with him, yes.</p><p>But not like that. Not under those circumstances.</p><p>When she had woken up to the smell of cinnamon, strapped to the table of an airship, Bastille didn’t have any idea where she was or what was going on. It all came back rather quickly to her though; the battle in Mokia, being hit with a Librarian blast and being knocked into a coma, and Alcatraz-</p><p>
  <em>Alcatraz-</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Alcatraz!</em>
</p><p>She had torn through her bindings and grabbed her sword after that, pure fury slamming her against the side of the airship to get out. She didn’t know where he was, or what was happening to him, but nobody, Librarian or otherwise, was going to stop her from getting back to that boy.</p><p>But waiting at the top of those stairs, at the foot of that altar, was a sight she had never wanted to see.</p><p>She barely recognized him as the Alcatraz she knew and loved; he looked so desolate, so utterly broken. The bloody mess behind him gave her every clue as to why.</p><p>The months after she carried him home that day hadn’t gone well. It took everything in Bastille to not scream in a reporter’s face when they tried to corner her, Alcatraz, another Smedry, or anyone else who could have been there for details on what had happened in the Highbrary. (She did give them a fair amount of rude gestures and snippy comments.) Everyone wanted to know about Alcatraz’s heroic deeds.</p><p>She just wanted him to feel any better, and to maybe sleep peacefully through a night.</p><p>Alcatraz seemed shaken to his core. Bastille tried to talk to him about anything; what happened (too tender a subject), how he felt (too overwhelming), even about something completely different, but he always seemed somewhere else, stuck in his own mind. It made sense, why he was like this, but it was still so painful to witness; she just tried to do what she could.</p><p>She hadn’t seen it coming, but she probably should have; that even in a traumatized state, that boy could still be so stupid.</p><p>Another pair of Crystin knights stationed outside Keep Smedry had run up to her with the news: Alcatraz had snuck out of the castle, and had been spotted taking a small glass craft by himself; witnesses speculated he was heading towards the Worldspire. She hadn’t hesitated in following, grabbing only her jacket and her Warrior’s Lenses. Finding a pilot with another airship to take her over hadn’t been hard, and she was off, hoping that they hadn’t lost him entirely.</p><p>When they had gotten close, Bastille donned her Grappler’s Glass boots and climbed to the outside of the airship to stand on the top. Even with the high wind whipping her hair around, she was able to spot him, standing on the observation platform that circled the tip of the Worldspire. He was precariously close to the edge, and she wondered if she could get to him without him losing his balance and falling.</p><p>But she didn’t have to wait for that to happen. Bastille watched in dawning horror as Alcatraz leaned out over the chasm. She called out to him, but he didn’t seem to hear her.</p><p>Alcatraz jumped.</p><p>Bastille felt her heart plummet with him, and instinct took over. She got a running start and leapt off the top of the airship, slamming into the observation platform, somehow still on her feet. With no hesitation, she scrambled towards the end of the platform, running forward even as she felt the floor underneath her feet disappear.</p><p>The only thing in her mind was what she had just seen. Alcatraz had jumped off the Worldspire.</p><p>Bastille jumped after him.</p>
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